ET Graphics: AI startups are still hot investment picks
Investments in
generative AI
startups continue unabated despite macro downturns and geopolitical tensions. Going by Pitchbook's latest report, 58% of the $73-billion global VC investments in the first quarter of 2025 was in AI startups.
ETtech
The
2025 Stanford AI Index report
says private AI investments increased 44.5% between 2023 and 2024. In addition, corporate investments in AI through mergers and acquisitions, minority stakes and public offerings have seen a 25.5% uptick in 2024 compared to in 2023. These investments stood at $19 billion in 2014. This has come on the back of rising adoption of AI as companies begin to see clear return on investments. Swathi Moorthy looks at how the AI investment landscape has changed in the past year in terms of investments and adoption.
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Time of India
10 hours ago
- Time of India
RBI keeping a close watch on newly-licensed payment firms
The Reserve Bank of India has tightened its scrutiny of newly licensed payment aggregators with regular audits and close inspection of the procedures they follow, according to industry executives. After the regulator brought digital payments within its ambit, it is also trying to ensure that payment firms do not have any loose ends through which fraudsters can get access to the wider banking ecosystem. 'One of the things the RBI wants to know is if these merchants are genuine, if they are actual online businesses,' said a chief executive officer of a payments firm, requesting not to be named. 'The idea is to keep the ecosystem free from fraudulent merchants.' KYC (know your customer) is one important aspect that the RBI is looking at very closely, the people cited earlier said. There is a draft proposal that the regulator had circulated regarding making full KYC mandatory for every merchant being onboarded by payment aggregators. The circular is yet to be implemented. ETtech Live Events The executive cited earlier further said RBI officials are also calling up field staff to check if KYC procedures laid out by the company are being followed by agents on the ground. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories Payout is an important area of concern for the payments industry, people said. Payouts are processed when any business instead of accepting payments wants to pay either its vendors, cashbacks to customers or process ecommerce returns. 'The question the industry is pondering over is how should these payouts be processed, if they need to be moved via the settlement accounts only,' the executive cited earlier said. The regulator has given out licences to some 54 companies which are allowed to operate as online payment processing entities. Now it wants to ensure that these companies are strictly abiding by norms with regards to supporting payments for online merchants. 'We have always been scrutinised by banks, but bank audits were mostly procedural, something which we were used to, but now RBI audits have become much more stringent and they want to ensure that the rules are being followed across the organisation,' a senior executive at a payments firm said. The RBI is also pushing these fintechs, which in most cases are venture-funded startups, to have strict board-approved policies followed by the management teams. 'We have added professional independent directors to the board now and have changed many approval systems in a way that it abides by regulatory protocol. There is more hygiene that the RBI is trying to bring in,' said another chief executive officer at a Mumbai-based digital payments major. PhonePe recently appointed accomplished banker Zarin Daruwala to its board as an independent director. Earlier this year, PayU had appointed Renu Sud Karnad, former managing director at HDFC, as the chairperson. While on a monthly basis, there is data sharing with the regulator, officials also turn up at their offices on short notice, industry insiders said. 'We had an instance where officials informed us on Friday evening that they will be coming on Monday,' said the executive cited above. Overall, the message that the RBI wants to give to this emerging sector is that they need to put systems in place and stick to them. A founder at a payments firm also pointed out that the RBI is not expecting these firms who are new to the regulatory regime to already have everything in place. But it wants founders to be honest about the progress and remain transparent about it. As the Indian digital payments ecosystem grows, the RBI is also trying to ensure that these firms closely follow the best practices of the financial services industry. Previously, players such as Razorpay and Cashfree had faced regulatory ire when their customer onboarding was completely brought to a stop. Paytm needed to get government clearance regarding their international investments. PayU needed to get its Indian corporate entity to keep the RBI satisfied. The Naspers-backed company managed to get the final PA licence only in May 2025.
Time of India
a day ago
- Time of India
Qcomm cos on govt radar; Tata upskills in Taiwan
Qcomm cos on govt radar; Tata upskills in Taiwan Also in the letter: Govt may increase scrutiny on quick commerce firms following hygiene, food safety issues Taking charge: Second strike: Last year, a raid by the Telangana food safety commissioner also flagged lapses at Blinkit warehouses. In response, the FSSAI urged state authorities to step up inspections of quick commerce facilities. The agency also amended norms, mandating that rapid delivery platforms supply products with at least 30% of their shelf life remaining or a minimum of 45 days before expiry. In addition to concerns about food safety, quick commerce firms have also faced scrutiny over the use of manipulative design tactics, known as dark patterns. Also Read: Rapid expansion: Tata Electronics sends hundreds of staff to Taiwan for semicon training Driving the news: Now hiring: Talent hunt: To build its talent pipeline, Tata Electronics is recruiting top executives from chipmakers such as Intel and GlobalFoundries, while also training less experienced employees. Fresh graduates and professionals with some industry exposure are being sent to Taiwan as part of this programme. Sponsor ETtech Top 5 & Morning Dispatch! Why it matters: The opportunity: Reach a highly engaged audience of decision-makers. Boost your brand's visibility among the tech-savvy community. Custom sponsorship options to align with your brand's goals. What's next: Flexiloans raises another Rs 375 crore from Fundamentum, Accion and others The details: The round was led by existing investors, including Nandan Nilekani's Fundamentum, US-based impact investor Accion, American asset management firm Nuveen, and Denmark-based asset management company Maj Invest. British International Investment (BII), the UK's development finance institution, joined in as a new investor. Tell me more: Founder's take: Wealthtech startup PowerUp Money raises $7 million: Garuda Aerospace raises $1 million: Other Top Stories By Our Reporters Byju's US assets Epic and Tynker sold for a song: Meesho converts to public entity in run-up to IPO: OpenAI's ChatGPT down; users report issues in loading prompts: Global Picks We Are Reading Happy Wednesday! The government may increase surveillance on quick commerce dark stores because of increasing hygiene concerns. This and more in today's ETtech Morning Dispatch.■ ETtech Done Deals■ Byju's US fire sale■ Meesho converts to public entityThe government is likely to increase oversight of quick commerce companies' dark stores following a spate of complaints about food safety violations at facilities run by leading told us that the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) will lead the effort, with plans for surprise inspections at dark stores and other storage facilities across the FSSAI, which falls under the health ministry, sets standards for the manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import of food HSBC Global ReasearchThe move follows recent action by the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which suspended the licences of Blinkit and Zepto's dark stores in Mumbai and Pune after uncovering multiple hygiene breaches and violations of food safety executives and brand founders told ET that the fast and largely 'unchecked' growth of quick commerce platforms, which pushed both marketplaces and brands to scale at breakneck speed, may be at the root of the Electronics is ramping up preparations for its semiconductor fabrication (fab) and assembly and test (OSAT) facility by sending scores of employees to Taiwan for told us that the electronics arm of the Tata Group has sent 'a couple of hundred' employees to its technology partner Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC) for hands-on training in the specialised skills needed to operate the upcoming fab in training is being conducted in a phased and structured manner, as PSMC can accommodate only a limited number of trainees at a Rs 91,000-crore fab in Dholera is expected to generate over 20,000 direct and indirect skilled jobs. Tata Electronics has started hiring in batches of 75, according to a person familiar with the matter."Different batches focus on distinct operations like equipment, yield engineering, process technology and another on quality engineering, which is generally a smaller group that doesn't need as many people,' the person Top 5 and Morning Dispatch are must-reads for India's tech and business leaders, including startup founders, investors, policy makers, industry insiders and Reach out to us at spotlightpartner@ to explore sponsorship opportunities.(L-R) Manish Lunia, Deepak Jain, Ritesh Jain, founders, FlexiloansNon-banking finance company Flexiloans has raised Rs 375 crore in a mix of primary and secondary capital to drive its expansion raise follows a Rs 290 crore infusion in October 2024 . That round had valued the company at $140 million, ET reported at the time. The current raise includes a significant secondary ended FY24 with revenue of Rs 263 crore and a net profit of Rs 3 crore. The company is yet to file its FY25 financials.'Through this round, we have given exits to the high networth individuals who had invested in the company in 2017. Most of our existing institutional investors have doubled down in the company,' said Deepak Jain, a cofounder of wealthtech startup PowerUp Money has raised $7.1 million in its first major institutional funding round, led by early-stage investors Accel, Blume Ventures, and Kae Capital. This round also included participation from 8i Ventures and in April by Prateek Jindal, a former cofounder at Uni Cards, the startup offers direct mutual fund investments to retail startup Garuda Aerospace, backed by former Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, has raised $1 million in a funding round from the Narotam Sekhsaria Family Office (NSFO). The company plans to use the funds to scale up manufacturing capacity from 8,000 drones annually to 12,000-15,000 US assets of troubled edtech company Byju's, coding platform Tynker and kids learning platform Epic, have been sold for a fraction of what the company paid for them. A US bankruptcy court approved both sales during a hearing on May 20, as reported by EdWeek Market board of ecommerce marketplace Meesho has approved its conversion into a public entity in anticipation of a planned initial public offering (IPO), as stated in its filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT experienced an outage , with thousands of users encountering difficulties in loading and accessing results for their prompts. The company acknowledged the outage and stated that both ChatGPT and the image generation AI tool, Sora, have been affected.■ Trump's Tech Bros: Can Tim Cook save Apple from the trade war? 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Time of India
a day ago
- Time of India
Govt may increase scrutiny on quick commerce firms following hygiene, food safety issues
ETtech Live Events ETtech The Centre may call for increased surveillance on rapid delivery outfits amid growing hygiene issues flagged by food and health watchdogs at dark stores run by quick commerce officials in the consumer affairs ministry said the central government has taken cognisance of recent food safety complaints amid poor sanitary conditions at dark stores or warehouses from where such deliveries are Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is expected to take the lead on this campaign. The agency, which comes under the aegis of the health ministry, is planning to step up unscheduled checks at quick commerce dark stores and other storage facilities across the country, officials FSSAI is charged with establishing the standards for manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import of food items.'It's a work in progress… the government has been receiving several complaints from consumers as well as retailers and vendors,' a senior government official said. 'It's a serious issue that multiple departments will need to work together towards to address.'This follows raids by the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Mumbai and Pune at warehouses of quick commerce platforms Zepto and Blinkit that threw up multiple hygiene issues and violations of food safety norms. It led to the suspension of the dark store operators' licences. ET reported on June 7 that nearly a dozen packaged food companies have written to quick commerce platforms in the last two-three months, raising immediate concerns about lapses in storage and handling at dark stores, citing specific food safety issues at these platforms had cropped up last year as well after the Telangana food safety commissioner conducted raids at Blinkit warehouses in the state and found violations. The FSSAI had last year asked state authorities to step up scrutiny of quick commerce dark stores after concerns over hygiene and the supply of products close to expiry. In the light of this, the FSSAI had also changed regulations, stipulating that ecommerce and quick commerce marketplaces have to ensure a minimum shelf life of 30% or at least 45 days before products expire at the time of commerce executives said dark stores operate as per existing laws.'There's a standard training that everyone working at our dark stores undergoes to ensure how certain items are to be dealt with,' said a senior Gurugram-based executive at a quick commerce firm. 'This includes food items that need to be handled and stored, keeping certain things in mind such as temperatures or hygiene.'Besides hygiene and food safety-related concerns, quick commerce firms had also recently come under the scanner for the use of dark May 28, Union consumer affairs minister Pralhad Joshi held a meeting on this issue that was attended by top consumer internet firms including Swiggy Zomato and Blinkit parent Eternal, Flipkart, BigBasket, Tata 1mg, Ola and consumer affairs ministry has since intensified awareness campaigns about dark patterns, which refer to deceptive app design practices that mislead consumers into unintended actions. These include false urgency alerts, subscription traps, hidden costs added at checkout and stealth advertising to manipulate consumer decision June 7, the ministry issued an advisory asking ecommerce platforms to conduct self-audits to identify dark patterns within three months and take action to ensure these are scrapped. The companies, based on these audit reports, will then have to provide a declaration that they weren't indulging in any dark executives and brand founders told ET that the fast, yet 'unchecked' expansion of quick commerce platforms — that led to these marketplaces as well as brands scaling up quickly — could be at the heart of the of specific products that are more susceptible to hygiene issues, such as frozen foods and ice creams, have been working with quick commerce platforms to figure out optimal ways to store and deliver items.'Earlier, quick commerce companies delivered our products along with soaps and shampoos… but we have been working with them to understand how ice creams need to be stored and delivered in separate containers,' the founder of an ice-cream brand told ET. This year, quick commerce platforms are expected to sell around Rs 200 crore of ice-cream products each month during sector, which has attracted billions of dollars in investments, has undergone a rapid scale-up in the last year. According to a note by HSBC Global Research, quick commerce firms in India had around 1,800 dark stores at the end of FY24, which increased to more than 4,000 by the end of fiscal 2025. That's expected to reach 5,000-5,500 stores by the end of FY26. This includes the larger players such as Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart, in addition to the likes of Flipkart Minutes, BigBasket, Amazon Now and Reliance commerce dark stores that have been around for at least 12 months easily clock over 1,000 orders every day. Segment leader Blinkit recorded 142 million orders on its platform in the March quarter.
